We are living in the Era of the Offended

a reply to: SaturnFX

So, oppression in its various forms based on not being white and male and heterosexual and probably Christian no longer exists in America, and it's all just economics?

I think that argument is absurd enough to require proof.


ETA It just hit me that in your earlier post, you qualified my experience of harassment as a queer misgendered person with the fact that it was anecdotal. What was your reasoning behind such a qualification?

originally posted by: Phototropic
a reply to: SaturnFX

So, oppression in its various forms based on not being white and male and heterosexual and probably Christian no longer exists in America, and it's all just economics?

I think that argument is absurd enough to require proof.

You are the one making claims, show me proof of laws that discriminate based on either skintone or gender in favor of the white man and we can then start.

I think you are thinking random personal prejudices somehow = the system.
I may find people with green eyes ugly, that does not mean the law of the land deems green eyes ugly..thats just my opinion.

It's all just engineered to keep people emoting, flooding their bodies with hormones that decrease their capacity for critical thought. If people calmed down they might catch on to the underhanded crap the other hand is up to.

People who are feeling strongly can be easily herded and controlled,
People who are thinking become problematic to control.

a reply to: sarra1833

Be who and what you are and stop granting the whiners ANY authority over you! As I have said before, a complete and TOTAL apathetic reaction to accusations and criticisms is something these bedwetters are entirely unprepared for and it always diffuses them. "You think I am a bigot? OK, whatever... back to the original topic." works amazingly well in this age of knee jerk reactions and presumed equal rebuttals.

a reply to: SaturnFX

I think I'm done playing whack-a-mole with you. It's not an extraordinary claim that bigotry exists in the US, not necessarily under letter of the law, but in practice. Millions of people in this country experience harassment, discrimination, assault, hell, even MURDER, because they happen not to be white, male-bodied heterosexuals. To suggest that's a claim requiring proof in argument is absurd. In The Rules of Arguing with People, you don't have to provide proof for facts that are super friggin' obvious or well-known.

originally posted by: NthOther
a reply to: enlightenedservant

50 years from now people will be in polyamorous relationships with flocks of geese and no one will be able to say that it's f# weird because we'll all be too afraid of being "tolerance-shamed" by an angry mob.

Hopefully this ridiculous culture won't last that long, though.

If, and that is a big if, it gets to that point then the point will be made.

Using hypotheticals to prove a point doesn't really work.

Like Charlie said, PC does get out of control but being called out for ignorant comments is not getting pc policed.

originally posted by: Phototropic
a reply to: SaturnFX

I think I'm done playing whack-a-mole with you. It's not an extraordinary claim that bigotry exists in the US, not necessarily under letter of the law, but in practice. Millions of people in this country experience harassment, discrimination, assault, hell, even MURDER, because they happen not to be white, male-bodied heterosexuals. To suggest that's a claim requiring proof in argument is absurd. In The Rules of Arguing with People, you don't have to provide proof for facts that are super friggin' obvious or well-known.

you said systematic. this means a structured method

sys·tem·at·ic
ˌsistəˈmadik/
adjective
done or acting according to a fixed plan or system; methodical.

to that, you are wrong, hense why you refuse to offer proof...or evidence, because there is none, zilch, zero.
now
I agree there is personal bias still in existance. sure. plenty of racist jacktards.
and plenty of white people are victim of racial attacks and murders simply for being white in the wrong part of town.
antedotal story coming:
I went to high school about 5 miles away. occasionally I would sneak off with friends after school and have a cigarette at the store (trying to impress the smoking girls) and miss the bus. I had to walk home a couple times from not finding a ride.
the walk home took me directly through the "hood". I would mind my own business and just walk. and I stopped walking home the day I got jumped by a rather large group of black kids who didn't like a "white boy" walking through their neighborhood.

you want to focus on only the wrongs of what white people do, thats fine, but that also makes you legit 100% racist. You are part of the problem, you should learn to be a bit more progressive and stop insisting women and PoC must always be the victim.

Systematic...learn the definition, read and understand what you write or simply stop writing, because you are now getting offended due to you claiming something that catagorically isn't true..demanding its obvious doesn't somehow make it true, it just makes your claims even more laughable.

originally posted by: sarra1833
Being offended is fine, but there's a limit.

I don't see why. Being offended is simply having an opinion.

By saying there is a limit to being offended, you also say there's a limit to people's opinions.


I hope you can see how absurd and tyranical it is to claim something like that.



I'm sorry but there is plenty of excellent reasons to be offended in this world, in the US too. Americans hate to be reminded of it but there is a large part of the US population that is still composed of hate spewing bigots and racists, and it's perfectly normal to denounce it. It's not about political correctedness at all. It's about exposing hate for what it is.


For example if you don't find the text in my signature offensive and claim it's only "history" and that there's nothing to do about it, it means you are probably part of the problem rather than the solution.

If more people got offended in the world we could have avoided a few genocides.

a reply to: enlightenedservant

Both of your posts are stellar.

a reply to: sarra1833

Just an fyi, back in the day, people let things roll off of them mostly because they didn't have a choice in the matter. What else could they do? Get angry and lash out so a system designed to keep them down would do its thing and squash them?

Things aren't as simple as you remember them. Suicide rates are high among populations that get abused and can't fight back or say something about it.

originally posted by: enlightenedservant
Thankfully, times are changing drastically & people are getting more & more tolerant. I suspect that 50 years from now, society won't even remember the stuff we're "divided" over now. Equal rights & social benefits will be as common sense as having equal access to a restaurant (I used that as an example because during Segregation, ethnic minorities could be legally excluded from entering any place of business).

I REALLY hope they remember the things that divided us today, because if they don't they will only repeat the same mistakes that got us here with another group of people.

originally posted by: Krazysh0t
a reply to: sarra1833

Suicide rates are high among populations that get abused and can't fight back or say something about it.

Census data says, statistically speaking, white males are more than twice as likely to die by suicide than the closest minority group... That's either a statement against your assertion or pretty indicative of which group of Americans is truly abused and too scared to speak up form themselves.

originally posted by: burdman30ott6

originally posted by: Krazysh0t
a reply to: sarra1833

Suicide rates are high among populations that get abused and can't fight back or say something about it.

Census data says, statistically speaking, white males are more than twice as likely to die by suicide than the closest minority group... That's either a statement against your assertion or pretty indicative of which group of Americans is truly abused and too scared to speak up form themselves.

So you don't believe that poor white males don't get abused as well? The system is equally rigged against the poor no matter who you are.

a reply to: igor_ats

People are fired from their jobs, ridiculed and so on, death threats etc. All these things are real world consequences from thoughts, ppl have the power to influence from a keyboard.

People have always picked apart every word spoken in public by people that didn't like the speaker or the words, speaking in public has always come at a risk to your employment or station in life. Always. I'm not saying it's right, just that it's always been.

Your story about people in grey reminded me of a short story by Kurt Vonnegut Jr: Harrison Bergeron.

THE YEAR WAS 2081, and everybody was finally equal. They weren't only equal before God and the law. They were equal every which way. Nobody was smarter than anybody else. Nobody was better looking than anybody else. Nobody was stronger or quicker than anybody else. All this equality was due to the 211th, 212th, and 213th Amendments to the Constitution, and to the unceasing vigilance of agents of the United States Handicapper General.

Some things about living still weren't quite right, though. April for instance, still drove people crazy by not being springtime. And it was in that clammy month that the H-G men took George and Hazel Bergeron's fourteen-year-old son, Harrison, away.

It was tragic, all right, but George and Hazel couldn't think about it very hard. Hazel had a perfectly average intelligence, which meant she couldn't think about anything except in short bursts. And George, while his intelligence was way above normal, had a little mental handicap radio in his ear. He was required by law to wear it at all times. It was tuned to a government transmitter. Every twenty seconds or so, the transmitter would send out some sharp noise to keep people like George from taking unfair advantage of their brains.

George and Hazel were watching television. There were tears on Hazel's cheeks, but she'd forgotten for the moment what they were about.

On the television screen were ballerinas.

A buzzer sounded in George's head. His thoughts fled in panic, like bandits from a burglar alarm.

"That was a real pretty dance, that dance they just did," said Hazel.

"Huh" said George.

"That dance-it was nice," said Hazel.

"Yup," said George. He tried to think a little about the ballerinas. They weren't really very good-no better than anybody else would have been, anyway. They were burdened with sashweights and bags of birdshot, and their faces were masked, so that no one, seeing a free and graceful gesture or a pretty face, would feel like something the cat drug in. George was toying with the vague notion that maybe dancers shouldn't be handicapped. But he didn't get very far with it before another noise in his ear radio scattered his thoughts.

a reply to: sarra1833

the original thought hasn't changed. The way individual thought has made it's way into everyone's life has.
Just think, I can start a twitter account, gain a massive following, and then alert all of them when I take a satisfying bowel movement. Hell, I can even include pictures.

We didn't have stuff like that when I was a kid. But then my bathroom adventures carried about the same public interest then as they do now.

Gray grey gray grey. Even we'd have to settle for an 'e' or 'a' in the name to avoid offending someone.

Don't reference that colour at all. It was the color of the Confederate army uniforms and that offends me. That colour should be completely removed from from our society in general. The entire US Navy is filled with racist hate filled bigots because all of the ships are gray/grey.

a reply to: Gothmog
Do you not realize the Earth makes oil all by itself? It is not about decomposing dinosaurs and ancient flora. It is a machine; within its capability is to create fossil fuels and natural gas.

originally posted by: Bluesma
It's all just engineered to keep people emoting, flooding their bodies with hormones that decrease their capacity for critical thought. If people calmed down they might catch on to the underhanded crap the other hand is up to.
People who are feeling strongly can be easily herded and controlled,
People who are thinking become problematic to control.

Tell this to the Buddhist or Hindi; they figured this out 100s of years ago. Was it a case of 'giving up', no; outsmarting the system by not participating in the emotional/social state (drummed up drama) that surrounds EVERYONE living in all places. They ignore the uncertainty of the social system; instead connect to a Absolute source entity they believe is their creator. Its all about trust and faith in that being to bring them back to SOURCE.

originally posted by: vethumanbeing
a reply to: Gothmog
Do you not realize the Earth makes oil all by itself? It is not about decomposing dinosaurs and ancient flora. It is a machine; within is capability its to create fossil fuels and natural gas.

Scientists now theorize that oil comes from further down below earth's crust. They have put this theory out as oil companies have noticed that once "dry" wells are refilling especially in Saudi Arabia.